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Monday, 31 October 2016

'Cougar' is available at the Amazon store for only $0.99/£0.99 from the FIRST OF NOVEMBER, 2016! Pick up a copy now!

'Ex-actor and escort, Sean Edwards, specialises in dating mature women. They are the most grateful, tip the highest and, more importantly, allow Sean to play a role for the evening. When a client invites Sean to her home and unlawfully imprisons him, he is forced to use his acting skills to survive. It is only when a figure from his captor's past arrives that Sean is given the option to move forward and escape or die forgotten in a basement, a victim of his own choosing.'

Tuesday, 11 October 2016

The wonderful Chuck Wendig over at terribleminds has challenged his readers to write the first act of a scary story in only 1,000 words. The aim here is for someone or someones to pick up the story's threads and continue the tale, writing a second act, if you will. Of course, from there the challenge will move onto the third act until the narrative is finished in a wonderful example of collaborative storytelling.So, as a big fan of Chuck's challenges here's the first part of my story (as of yet, untitled):

Dave sat
down to his breakfast and watched his new neighbor, Bob, go ape-shit on number
twenty-eight’s lawn. Dave licked butter from his fingers, swallowed his first
taste of hot coffee and went over to the window for a closer look. Bob was on
one knee, hands tearing at the skin of his throat, body shaking like a guppy
fish in its final death-throes.

Idiot, Dave
thought, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Goddamn
show off.

He
returned to the breakfast nook and guzzled another mouthful of Joe. Dangers of
living opposite a Limey: you never knew what to expect next. One minute the
guy’s moving in – all Savile Row business suit, afternoon tea and crumpets –
the next he’s causing a scene in the middle of the street like a mental patient.

Out
on Mr Bewford’s beautifully manicured lawn, Bob had fallen flat on his face,
hands still working at his own throat. Dave watched silently for a few moments,
cursed himself and went out to see what all the fuss was about.

Throwing out my morning routine,
you British asshole.

Bob
was screaming, face-first, into the grass. It sounded like something was caught
in the man’s windpipe. Dave shuffled over in his slippers, close enough to feel
the heat baking from him. He caught a whiff of shit but reassured himself it
was just the manure in the garden.

‘What
is it, Bob?’ he asked. He spied a sodden, brown lump mashed into the set of
Bob’s trousers and suppressed a shudder. ‘Anything I can help you with?’

Bob
responded with a guttural yelp. His shoes dug sickle-shaped furrows into the
grass.

‘No
good, old bean,’ Dave said. He raised
his voice over the din. ‘Perhaps this is what your lot get up to first thing
but you may have noticed that here on Magnolia we don’t have time for games.
Now, if you want me to help you back inside let’s get on with it. My coffee is
getting cold.’

He
rolled Bob rolled over onto his back and immediately regretted the decision.

Bob’s
fingers clawed at a neck three sizes too big, the skin black and shiny like a
bicycle inner tube pumped up past its capacity. His tongue thrashed from the
grim opening of his mouth, his choked wails rising into the air.

Before
Dave could check Bob’s airway, Bob grabbed him. He linked his hands behind
Dave’s neck and pulled himself close. ‘Sleep,’ Bob said with a dry bark. ‘It’s
the sleep.’

Dave
pulled himself away, the stink of sweat and shit all at once too much. He tried
to re-examine his neighbor's blackened neck but Bob battered his fingers away
for a second time.

‘Sleep,’ he tried again. He reached into
one pocket, pulled something out and forced it into Dave’s hand. ‘They are
coming.’

Dave
looked down. The object was tiny, barely large enough to fill his palm. A gold,
circular trinket. Metal links twisted and twirled about its circumference. Its
lines seemed to dance right there against his flesh.

Looks like an antique, Dave had
time to think. Bob let go, yelped shrilly and barred his teeth, in the full
grip of a seizure. His fingers left the ruined mess off his neck and tore up
chucks of grass

Dave
looked on, helpless. A slick chill raced from the base of his spine to the nape
of his neck and back again. He shivered despite the warmth of the June morning.

*

They carted
Bob off around 8:15 – a pair of paramedics who pumped Bob’s chest, yelled his
name and lifted him into the back of their Day-Glo vehicle. After they had
gone, Dave watched the dull, man-shaped impression Bob had left behind on
twenty-eight’s lawn. Neighbors were out on the street by now – gossiping,
pointing, arms wrapped around themselves like flabby, insecure wraps. Dave didn’t
fill them in on what had happened; just kept his eyes glued to the Bob-shape on
the lawn.

The sleep. It’s the sleep.

When
the cops showed up, he answered their questions. Told them what he knew. He
kept Bob’s gift hidden in his pants pocket, of course. And why shouldn’t he?
Bob had given the thing to him. Him and no-one else.

They are coming.

That
night, Dave skipped dinner. He couldn’t eat. His stomach felt locked and
bloated. Every time he tried to convince his body to try a piece of toast, a
glorious, feature-sized image of Bob’s haunted, staring eyes flared up before
him.

But
the trinket made it all better. No doubt about that. Beautiful. So beautiful.
The miniature hoops shifted and moved – a Celtic band one moment, a broach, a
golden lattice the next. Sometimes, if he looked away for too long, he became
afraid the gift would disappear and wink out from existence.

Better
to keep his focus glued to the shifting hoops.

In
the end he crawled up to bed, the trinket brought up close between the pillow
and his ear. He expected to hear the metal plates shifting and twirling and sliding
but the only sound was that of his own breath. He looked about his bedroom as
though for the first time. The shape of the dresser at the foot of the bed
began to change but he put it out of mind. The fitted wardrobe had too many
corners. He thought it best to ignore it.

He
lay that way – somewhere between awake and asleep – until the early hours of
the morning. Finally, when sleep took him, he was too exhausted to realize.

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Is there such a thing as writer's block? I think there is always something for a writer to do to combat the dreaded block: there are plenty of writing prompts if the ol' idea banks are empty and as long as you add something to the page you are making progress.But what about that dreaded period, post-novel, where it seems like such a Herculean task to start a new book. For me, that's where Writer's Block rears its ugly head. Which ideas are worth their salt? Is this something I want to spend the next three months of my life working on? Will it keep a reader engaged for 80K words or more?But i suppose that's my internal 'editor' talking. And that's where the block comes from. To hell with that voice. There's nothing wrong with free writing or stream-of-consciousness work. Perhaps that's my next call...